DROPPING DUST
The bastardry, pursuit, harassment and villification went on for a very long time. It eroded into his unconfident psyche and made him act in strange, distressed manners. It wasn't easy growing old, or he didn't find it so; by the time he hit 50 he was too embarrassed to be seen out and about anymore. No longer the gasp in the room. No longer certain. He hadn't discovered the great democracy, the tumult of open places. The companionship between men. The buckling flies. "Sorry guys, I'm used to the left," the man said, pointing his bandaged arm.
"What happened?" Michael asked, as they walked back to their cars.
"Fight with my flatmate," the man said, raising his sunglasses to indicate a black eye.
Michael laughed, intrigued by the man's cheery demeanour.
But there was never time for talking. Talking was not what it was all about.
"When are you going away again?" people occasionally asked, used to the fact that he never stayed in one place long.
"I don't know," came the only response he could honestly give. "I'm restless."
Restless! He wanted to go now, and he wanted a base. But one piece of frustration would drive him into another achievement, and they could all get fucked, the watchers, the parasites, those who had chosen to harass him, or carry out the work of those who wanted to destroy him. Because he dared, what, to express his views, to object to being robbed and lied about.
Never mind.
"It sounds like you've dropped the dust," an old friend turned drug and alcohol counsellor declared of his return to Australia.
For a moment he didn't understand what she meant. Then he did.
Yes, he had dropped the dust. His pursuers, all the baggage, the swirls of lies and hysteria, had vanished, more or less.
All that was left, he hoped, was a protective mantle. Make sure the Thai mafia don't kill him.
Doesn't look good.
Didn't look good for the mafia either, to go around robbing, threatening, killing and maligning tourists, but power drunk and stupid, that they hadn't worked out.
THE BIGGER STORY:
Kevin Rudd can give as good as he gets when it comes to writing history.
The former prime minister has shrugged off an excerpt from the memoirs of former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, in which Dr Gates fell asleep while listening to Mr Rudd talk.
Illustration: Cathy Wilcox
In his book Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, to be released next week, Dr Gates recalls how a mix of drugs for a broken shoulder, jet lag and wine saw him doze off while Mr Rudd gave "a long soliloquy" about Australian history during a 2008 dinner.
The former Defence secretary writes that the then prime minister was "very gracious about the whole thing". But on Thursday, a spokeswoman for Mr Rudd had a more pointed take on the incident.
"Given the the number of pain-killing drugs [Dr Gates] was on when he arrived at the Lodge, Mr Rudd thought it was surprising Mr Gates could remember anything from the evening at all," she said.
"Perhaps Mr Gates should have taken up Mr Rudd's suggestion, made to him when he arrived, to forget dinner and just go home to bed."
The former prime minister was not without understanding, however.
"Mr Rudd also recalls nodding off a few times himself over the years as foreign minister when the body clock kicked in at the wrong time," the spokeswoman said.
In Duty, Dr Gates, who was Defence Secretary from 2006 to 2011, describes how he slipped on ice outside his house a week before his trip to Australia, breaking his shoulder in three places.
He notes that while he was lucky that the injury didn't need surgery, it still caused some "awkward moments" during his travels.
"At a very nice dinner given in my honour by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, I was doing fine at table conversation until Rudd began a long soliloquy on the history of Australia. I had made it just past World War I when the combined effect of a painkiller, jet lag, and a glass of wine caused me to fall asleep," Dr Gates writes.
"This led to not-so-subtle attempts by my American colleagues at the table to rouse me."
While Mr Rudd may not be happy about having the whole world find out about his boring conversation, he got off a lot more lightly in the book than US President Barack Obama - who is accused of not believing in the US strategy in Afghanistan.